Label:
Mute
Release Date:
13/02/2006

Oh, Goldfrapp. What happened? You made an uncommon, captivating dream-popera record, and we all sighed. You made a disco record, machinated with robotic erotica and blissed-out, retro euphoria, and we not only swooned, but marvelled at the ease with which you'd slipped 'cross genre boundaries. And then you released Supernature, and we slumped.

'Ride A White Horse' is symptomatic of everything that disappoints about present-day Goldfrapp. Alison's vocals slide sensuously down its spine while pin-prick beats pump away... it's all so competent and factual, step-by-step sex, so empty of the thrilling, bizarre spirit that put Goldfrapp head and shoulders above the competition.

It sounds like Madonna. Not dancing-round-burning-crucifixes Madonna or squeaking-pouting-Daddy's-girl Madonna, nor thrusting-her-chest-like-a-piston 'Ray Of Light' Madonna either. Not even the breathy, Erotica-era Madonna, Goldfrapp's sultry imitations of whom may have caused Oldfrapp's reputed ire towards them. No, 'Ride A White Horse' sounds like the conspicuously leotard-clad, somewhat eye-bleeding Madge who points her crotch persistently at us today. It's repetitive, reedy, namechecking a disco era that Goldfrapp have squeezed dry ...please, just stop, stop already. Move on - again. Goldfrapp's glistening, copulating robots have long since ceased production, replaced by a bored-sounding, chrome-clad human whose only concern is getting a timecard punched before leaving. Ugh. How disappointing. The DFA remix on its flipside performs better but still goes on far too long without making any real impact.

Alison Goldfrapp is undebatably one of the cleverest, most inventive musical forces to make a dent on the charts in recent years - thus, 'Ride A White Horse' is well below par. Can, and MUST, try harder.